Two paintings by a famous B.C. artist who spent some time in the Comox Valley sold for almost $2 million at auction Tuesday night.
The E.J. Hughes paintings were bought by the B.C. College of Physicians for a few hundred dollars in 1952.
The doctors' group paid Hughes less than $500 for his painting Coastal Boats Near Sidney, B.C. It sold Tuesday for $1,140,750 at the Heffel Fine Art Auction House.
The three-by-four-foot canvas depicts two coastal steamers that once sailed between Victoria, Nanaimo and Vancouver.
Another Hughes work owned by the college called Mouth of the Courtenay River fetched $789,750 Tuesday.
Both paintings hung in the College of Physicians' office for nearly 60 years. Proceeds from their sale will help to pay for the college's new offices.